Sonic Humans: Angel Island
by fresher-turtle
Summary: Nick and Miles have been living normally for the last 4 months, but a new student comes to Emerald High, and with him comes the discovery of a strange and mysterious island that shows signs of Dr. Robotnik. Looks like Sonic and Tails need to save the day again! (Set in a human AU)
1. Chapter 1

It had been 4 months since the Death Egg was destroyed. Nick and Miles hadn't transformed since then, because there was no need. Amy still couldn't remember Nick's secret, which was good. Nick and Miles were over at the Prower's house playing video games.

"Come on, Nick! I told you to go easy on me! I suck at this game," Miles said as Nick sent his character into digital heck.

"I am going easy," Nick said, using one hand to play the game and the other to eat pizza.

Mrs. Prower came into the room. "Nick, your mom is here to pick you up," she said.

"Okay, seeya later Miles," Nick said, standing up and throwing on his favorite jacket.

He jumped out the door, landing on icy pavement. "Whoa, forgot how slippery it is," he thought. Nick waved to Miles, then hopped in the passenger seat.

"So, what did you and Miles do? I hope you didn't just sit and play video games," Mrs. Chaos asked Nick.

"Nope. We ate pizza and played games!" Nick said with a pinch of sarcasm.

"Did you hear that a new student is coming to your school. The family is from Georgia in the United States, and he is in your grade," Mrs. Chaos said.

"What does this have to do with me?"

"They are moving into the house next to us," Mrs. Chaos said.

Nick's eyes widened, and he jumped out of his skin when he saw the moving trucks. "Oh no, what if he's annoying? What if he's mean?" Nick thought to himself.

After rushing inside, Nick looked at the time and then shrugged. "Eh, late enough for a nap." It was 11:00 in the morning.

Nick had a dream that was very similar to the one he had when he gained his powers, but this time he was Sonic. In the mirror, there was a red anthropomorphic echidna. "What the-" Sonic was moving around, but the echidna in his reflection just glared at him. Suddenly, the echidna thrust his fist forward, shattering the glass and hitting Sonic in the stomach hard.

Nick snapped awake. It was dark out, and he glanced at his phone. "Geez, twelve in the morning?!" he thought. Nick looked out into the inky blackness of the night, in the general direction of his neighbor's house. He sighed and went back to sleep, this time with no dreams.

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BE-* Nick slammed his fist down on the alarm clock. "School day, that means I get to meet the new kid," Nick thought to himself as he got dressed. He ran downstairs, ate cereal, and missed the bus. "Dang it!" Nick said as he watched the big yellow vehicle drive by his house. Nick threw his backpack over his shoulder, then walked outside into the crisp December air.

"Y'know, I could catch up to the bus if I… no, I haven't done it in 4 months, I'm outta practice," Nick thought to himself. "But there's no other way…" A flash of bright blue light engulfed Nick, and there stood Sonic the Hedgehog, with a backpack. "Yeesh, I forgot how weird it felt to have quills!" Sonic said quietly, pricking his finger when he reached to touch said quills.

Sonic tapped foot on the ground a few times, then started running. Before he knew it, he was a block away from the school, and had passed the bus in no time. "I really wish I remembered how fun this is sooner," Sonic said, flashing brilliantly and becoming Nick. He walked over to the school's front entrance, only to find that he had to wait another 15 minutes before the school would start letting people in. "Uuugh," Nick groaned, and then laid down and fell asleep on the pavement.

He was woken up by Miles shaking him wildly. "WAKE UP!" Miles yelled. Nick's eyelids slid open slowly, then shot open completely. "Oh, Miles. Good morning," Nick said groggily.

"Nick, you idiot! I saw a certain 'blue blur' go by the bus! And then you fell asleep in front of the school! C'mon, we're gonna be late," Miles said as Nick picked himself up and the two ran inside. They both plopped down in their desks right as the bell rang. Then, a couple seconds later, a tall, dark skinned, and lean boy came in. He had long dreadlocks, and looked pretty embarrassed to be in front of the whole class. "Class, we have a new student joining us today. Would you like to introduce yourself, Nathan?" the teacher said.

Nathan's face was as red as his red Nike shirt, and he didn't look happy. "Um, hi. My name's Nathan, annnnd...yeah. Uh, I'm going to, um, sit down now, so you can stop looking at me," Nathan was ready to cover his face from all the girls staring at him.

"So this is the new guy, huh? Some Jamaican dude with stage fright," Nick thought to himself as Nathan sat down next to Miles.

The rest of the day went by normally, and then there was lunch. Nick and Miles sat down next to the Chaotix and Roy. "Hey, Nathan! Come sit with us," Victor shouted, waving his hand towards the table. Nathan sat down next to Nick, and across from Michael. "So, did any of you see the blue blur on the bus this morning?" Nathan asked the group

Miles bit his lip. "Nick, you idiot," he thought to himself. "Nope, I didn't see it," Miles said, softly elbowing Nick. "Oh yeah, there's this hedgehog dude with super speed and he's blue," Nick said absent-mindedly. Miles face-palmed. Nathan looked shocked, then thought deeply. "Huh. I'd like to meet him. Are there any others like him?" Nathan asked, his voice serious.

"Yeah, he's got a sidekick with two tails that can fly," Nick said with enthusiasm. Miles' face was beet red. Nathan was taking this all in calmly. Miles wanted to change the subject. "Victor, why'd you eat all of Ethan's food?!" Michael yelled when Miles opened his mouth to speak. "I thought it was my tray," Victor said, looking up from the two empty trays in front of him.

Miles waited for the banter to die down, then spoke. "So Nathan, wanna tell us where you're from?" Miles asked.

"Yeah, my mom and dad are from Georgia in the United States, but I was found on an island and adopted," Nathan said, "The island is called Angel Island, and there are legends that it flies when powered with magic rocks that you don't know about," Nathan said.

"Great, he's about as dense as Nick," Miles thought.

Nick and the rest felt really bad for him, because of his adoption, but Nathan shrugged it off. "Eh, I never really knew my real parents, and I don't really listen to my adopted ones," Nathan said with a chuckle.

After school, Nick, Miles, and Nathan got on the bus, Miles sitting next to Nick, and Nathan in the seat across the aisle. A group of girls came over and started fighting over who got to sit with Nathan. Nathan climbed into the seat behind his, none of the girls noticing.

It was obvious to Nick that Nathan was an interesting guy. But he was nice, at least.

After the bus dropped Nick off at his house, he called Miles. "Hey, what d'ya think of checking out Angel Island later? I think that knucklehead Nathan is hiding something," Nick said, sitting on the big lazy chair in the living room.

"Eh, I dunno. I've got homework, but we could do it in a couple weeks. We'll tell our parents and-" Miles replied, his voice cut off.

"Hey, Nick. My chaos energy doohickey that I've been working on just picked up a big signal from Angel Island. Remember that guy at the university telling us about the people of Angel Island being turned into echidnas because of the master emerald? I think we found the last of those echidnas," Miles said.

"You're right! I had a dream yesterday where a red echidna punched me in the gut," Nick said.

"Okay, then"

"So when are we heading out to Angel Island?"

"It stays at a couple weeks. I know my mom won't let me go to some island in the dead of Winter," Miles said, then hung up after saying goodbye. "Time for a bunch of filler!"

Nick's mom got home from work. "Nick, I need you to shovel the front porch and driveway!" she yelled up the stairs. "Alright, I'm on it," he said, running downstairs in snow pants and boots. When he got outside, he looked over to Nathan's house, he saw that Nathan was doing the same thing, but his parents had dressed him up completely in snow gear. Nick chuckled for a bit, then got to work.

After an hour of shoveling, Nick was finished. "Nick, thanks for taking care of all that," Mrs. Chaos said.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Nick told her.

"Now that the driveway is clear, I'm going to go to the store out of town, so I'll be gone for about 3 hours," she said, getting in the car with her purse.

"Okay, seeya later," Nick waved, then dashed inside and sat on the couch. He turned on the TV and watched cartoons.

He got up when he heard his phone buzzing. "Hey, Miles, whaddya want?" Nick said to the phone. "Hi Nick, I was wondering if you wanted to… run around," Miles said, pausing before the word 'run'.

"Yeah, sounds fun! I need to be careful where I transform, though. Y'know, cause Nathan is my neighbor," Nick said, glancing at Nathan's house out the window.

"Just walk part of the way," Miles said, then hung up.

Nick grabbed a scarf and jacket, then walked out into the snowy Emerald City. He ran over to the alley where he'd usually transformed in August, but that was right in line with Nathan's house. Then he tried the one downtown where he ran into Amy. That was piled up with enough snow to where he could hide behind a big drift. A flash of bright blue erupted from the alley, and was followed by a sonic boom.

He made it to Miles' house in less than a second, and went in through the hangar door. "Huh. It's been a while since I was last here," Sonic said, looking around the big room. He heard clanging, mechanical noises and, drilling coming from the other side of the Tornado. "Miles, you there?" Sonic asked, running to the other side of the Tornado.

"Oh, Sonic! Aren't you gonna change back?" Miles said, looking up from the model Tornado he was working on.

"Oh yeah," Sonic said, transforming back into Nick, "So I was wondering if you wanted to go to Angel Island today."

"Today? I don't think we can do a full adventure in one day," Miles said.

"Oh, relax. We're just gonna go check it out, touch the Master Emerald, and leave."

"Are you sure? The echidnas were said to be very protective of the Master Emerald, and I don't want to get in a fight with Nathan, human or not."

"He won't be a problem for Super Sonic, will he?"

"Fine. We'll take the Tornado, but grab the chaos emeralds first."

"On it," Nick said, jumping, turning into Sonic, curling into a ball, and doing a drop dash. The plume of dust hit Miles right in the face. Sonic ran through Emerald City as fast as he could, but he tried taking a shortcut over the frozen bay, but was stuck running in place on the slippery ice.

Sonic jumped up, stretched his legs and arms out, then spun into a ball and dove at the thick ice. The blue ball that was Sonic grinded and sliced through the ice, making a trail that was halfway indented in the ice. He made it to land, and took off, snow flying up behind him.

He jumped up to his window, opened it, ran inside, grabbed the chaos emeralds, then dashed back over to Miles' house. "Took you long enough," Tails said, sitting in the pilot's seat of the Tornado.

"Hey, don't tell me that 32 seconds is too long, I got hung up on some ice," Sonic said, crossing his arms, then hopping on the wings of the tornado.

"Probably licked some cold metal," Tails said quietly, then started up the Tornado, punched in Angel Island's coordinates, and they were off. The water below them was completely ice, but as they got further away from Westside Island and South Island, the ice was more broken up and the water got more violent. Sonic was not mesmerised or captivated by the scenery at all. He was bored.

"When are we gonna get there?" Sonic asked Tails grouchily.

"2 hours, captain surly," Tails said back, snickering quietly.

"WHAT? ARE YOU CRAZY? TURN THE PLANE AROUND, I'M NOT-oh, we're here"

Tails was buckling over laughing at Sonic's reaction. Angel Island was not floating, or covered in snow. It was completely tropical, but was in the same region as South Island, which was strange. Tails flew close to the water, and Sonic jumped off. Right before he hit the water, there was a loud noise and flash of gold. Super Sonic flew past the Tornado, hit land, and was going to go shoot through the rest of the island when something happened.

A red echidna burst from the ground right under Super Sonic and punched him in the stomach hard. Super Sonic landed on the ground, but dashed up, and spindashed at the echidna, who grabbed the golden ball of quills, and kicked it like a football. Super Sonic, again, slammed on the ground with a thud, then got back up. The two ran at each other, then both went for a punch. The echidna dodged Super Sonic's fist, and punched him in the shoulder, which actually hurt. "This guy's unreal! Nothing can hurt me as Super Sonic, but this guy can tap me on the shoulder and it's-" Super Sonic's thoughts were interrupted by the echidna slamming Super Sonic's face in the ground, then picking him up by the quills and throwing him at Tails. Tails dodged out of the way.

Super Sonic's limp body bounced on the ground, and on the peak of a bounce, the echidna slammed down next to him and punched the chaos emeralds right out of him. With a chuckle, he swooped over and grabbed all the chaos emeralds in and armful, then laughed one more time before running off.

Tails helped Sonic up, then they both looked at each other. "What the… what kind of… rrrrRRR!" Sonic said, confused and pissed at the same time. Then, he did a super peel-out and rushed off into the tropical island. Tails was blasted with a plume of sand. "You're welcome, Sonic," he said sarcastically, then used his tails to blow the sand off.

Tails eventually caught up with Sonic, who was blasting badniks further inland. "Sonic, come on! The chaos emeralds can wait, we need to get back before we get totally caught up in this adventure!" Tails yelled over the sound of Sonic spinning and small badnik explosions.

Sonic stopped, landed, and sighed. "You're right. Let's get back to the Tornado," Sonic said, slouching for a moment then straightening out and charging up a super peel-out. Tails followed behind. Before he got in the Tornado, he looked back at the island behind them. For some reason, he had a bad feeling about this whole Angel Island thing. Not just the echidna, either.

They flew back to Miles' house in a few minutes, then transformed into their human forms. "So, we need a plan. How we're going to take care of our echidna friend, get the master emerald, the chaos emeralds, and the legendary super emeralds," Miles said, dropping a pile of books on his workbench, right next to an ancient map made by the echidna race, and a very tired and frustrated Nick, who grunted.

"Guess you'll be spending the night, huh?" Miles said, smiling at Nick, who simply grunted again, his eyelids low. Miles smiled at his tired friend, then called Mrs. Chaos. "Hello Mrs. Chaos. Nick needs to spend the night tonight. My parents are fine with it. We just have some extra studying to do for a history project," Miles said, looking at the books he checked out from the library, and then to Nick.

"Okay, Miles. Tell him to actually study, not just sleep," Mrs. Chaos said.

"Erm, it might be too late for that one," Miles said, laughing a bit when he saw the black-haired teen asleep, drooling on the ancient map. Luckily it was in a plastic page protector.

Mrs. Chaos said goodbye, then Miles ran into his bedroom and came back into the hangar with some sleeping bags and pillows. He dumped Nick out of the chair, and before he hit the ground, Nick woke up (partially) and then collapsed. Miles smiled, then put the sleeping bag around Nick and dragged the teen away from his workbench. Miles looked over to Nick one more time, then got to work on devising a plan to take on Angel Island.

The next morning, Miles woke up at 5 AM, to find that Nick was 10 feet away from the sleeping bag. Miles was a little confused, but ignored it and got on with his morning. He tried waking up Nick, but was met with a groggy, "No, I already had some stuffing, Grandma."

Miles drew his hand away from Nick, and walked in the kitchen to make some coffee. His dad was at work already, and his mom's job started later in the day, so she slept in. Miles made pancakes, then walked into the hangar to find Nick still sleeping. Miles set a twinkie in front of Nick's face, then walked back into the kitchen and ate the pancakes he made for himself.

Nick burst through the hangar door, his eyes squinted and a half-eaten twinkie in one of his hands. Miles learned long ago that Nick goes feral when he's tired. Miles handed him a plate of pancakes. Nick ate them all in less than ten seconds, then went over to the sink and splashed his face with cold water. "Well, that was a great breakfast," Nick said, patting Miles on the head.

"The bus is going to be here in a couple minutes, so make sure you're ready. Don't want to miss it again," Miles said, finishing his coffee and grabbing his backpack.

"Miles, don't you think you're a little young for coffee?" Nick asked as he poured himself a glass of apple juice.

"Well don't you think you're a little- actually, that suits you perfectly," Miles said, watching Nick pour an entire can of some energy drink into the apple juice, then downing the entire thing.

They got out to the bus stop, and Nick looked back at the hangar, then thought about the chaos emeralds. "I hate that echidna," he thought as he got on the bus. Nick passed by Nathan, who ignored him, so Nick sat with Miles farther back. When they got to school, they had 20 minutes before they had to get to class. Nick pounded another energy drink, then threw the can in the trash, and walked over to Nathan.

"So, where are you keeping them," Nick asked quietly as he passed by Nathan.

"What are you talking about?" Nathan asked, stepping away from Nick a little bit.

"What I'm talking about, is Angel Island last night," Nick snarled at Nathan.

"I haven't visited Angel Island since last weekend," Nathan said, visibly confused with what Nick was giving him.

"Okay, okay," Nick said, backing off and going over to Miles.

"He isn't saying anything," Nick whispered to Miles.

"Nick that was a dumb move, now he knows for sure that you're Sonic! Probably," Miles said, leaning on the wall, his arms crossed.

"Shoot! You're right. Let's just hope that he isn't the echidna," Nick said.

They made it to class, and Miles sat down next to Nathan, who was glaring at Nick with a small smirk. Class went by as usual: Boring. Nick and Nathan were both about to fall asleep, and Miles was investing all of his attention to the teacher.

"Y'know, you have a lot more in common with Nathan than you think," Miles whispered to Nick with a small laugh. After English, Science, and Art, they had lunch. Ethan and Roy were gone, and Amy hadn't spotted Nick yet, so Nathan sat with Nick, Miles, and the Chaotix again. Nathan and Nick avoided each other, but Nathan was having a good time talking to Victor and Michael.

After lunch, there was gym class, where Nathan gave Michael a run for his money. After school, Nick got home, and looked out the window to see Nathan getting off the bus too. His phone buzzed. Miles had texted him a picture of the plans, and Nick was going to look them over, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

Nathan and his parents were getting in their car and driving off. Nick watched their car until it was too far away to see. Nathan was hiding something interesting. And he was going to find it.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Nick woke up to his alarm beeping loudly in his ear. It had fallen down next to his head in the night. He threw it across the room, then got out of bed to turn it off. Nick got dressed, then went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. After brushing his teeth, he threw on clothes and purposefully missed the bus. Nick smirked as the bus drove by his house.

"I've been itching to be Sonic more often!" he said to himself as he was engulfed by a flash of bright light and became Sonic, who dashed off, running up the side of a few buildings, and spiraling up a tall building. He dropped down, holding his arms up and pointing his feet down.

Suddenly, a shiny blue blur slashed Sonic in the stomach, then flew below him to go for an uppercut. Sonic regained focus of the situation. "Jeez, Robotnik! I haven't gotten a good fight in for 4 months and you hit me with Metal?!" Sonic thought to himself as he kicked off of Metal to land on the side of the building. Sonic was running across the side of the skyscraper, and Metal Sonic followed close behind, tearing up the wall with his jet engine. Sonic glanced back to find Metal gaining on him. Suddenly, Metal disappeared, and Sonic saw something blue and silver out of the corner of his eye in front of him.

"Aw, come-" Sonic said as he tried to turn back around before Metal could attack. Metal flashed forward, punched Sonic back, then sped over to Sonic's side, and kicked the blue hedgehog through the glass of the skyscraper. Sonic shakily got up, but Metal firmly planted his foot on Sonic's chest. Sonic gripped Metal's ankle, trying to pull him off, but Metal just pushed down harder. There was a cracking sound, and Sonic let out a pained shout. Metal was about to break the rest of Sonic's ribs, when he was sent flying, making robot beeps. Right behind where Metal used to be stood the echidna, his fist still extended.

The echidna relaxed his position, then turned around to the hole in the wall. He glanced back at Sonic, then stepped off the edge, plummeting down. Sonic just layed on the ground for a couple moments, then transformed into Nick. "Phew. I hate to admit it, but Metal had me there for a second, then the echidna showed up and punched him over...uh oh," Nick said quietly to himself, then snapped around to find another hole on the other side of the building, laced with machine parts.

Nick looked over the edge of the first hole to find fist-shaped indents going up the wall. Nick looked up from the holes and peered out around Emerald City. His eyes drifted around the tiny buildings far below, then stopped on one in particular. "OH SHOOT, I'M GONNA BE LATE FOR SCHOOL!" Nick yelled, then ran around until he found the stairs, and jumped down them. He stumbled out the main entrance, then started jogging over to Emerald High.

Miles was nervous. Nick could be late, as fast as he was, but was never so late that he missed the first class almost entirely. Phones weren't allowed in class, and Miles wasn't going to take that risk, even for his best friend. Nathan had burst through the door almost 20 minutes ago.

Right before class ended, there was a rapid knocking on the door. The teacher walked over to it, already knowing what would happen next. She opened the door, and in came Nick,gasping for breath. "Do you have a pass?" the teacher asked Nick.

"Nope," Nick answered, then walked over to his desk and got out his books.

At lunch, Miles asked Nick why he was so late. "Well, let's just say I was _running_, and a certain shiny doppelganger tried to kill me," Nick said, then shrugged and started shoveling his food into his face. Miles got his phone out, because they were allowed during lunch, and looked up the local news. Sure enough, he found an article with plenty of pictures of a skyscraper that had a trail of splintered and melted glass, leading to a big hole. Inside the hole, there was blood and burn marks on the floor, and another hole was on the other side of the building, where complicated robot parts were scattered. Reading the article, Miles found out that the DNA test on the blood just produced scrambled results.

"Nick, how bad did you and Metal hurt each other," Miles asked, looking up from his phone to Nick. "Uh, he slashed my stomach, punched me in the chest, punched me in the face through glass, and stepped on my chest until some of my ribs broke," Nick said, counting his injuries on his fingers.

"Wow, you suck," Miles said in a condescending way.

"Hey, my first fight in 4 months and he sends out Metal, what did you expect?!"

"How did you escape?"

"The echidna guy scrapped Metal with one good punch, but Metal got away."

"Yeah, if he can make Super Sonic look like a stinky idiot, Metal stands no chance," Miles said, snickering a bit. Nick glared at Miles, then went back to wolfing down his food. Nathan sat down, ate his food, then got up and put away his tray without saying a thing. Once Nathan was gone, Miles and Nick got back to talking.

"And we don't have any chaos emeralds for healing, so Sonic's out of commission at the moment," Nick said, looking sad.

"Hey, I can still do plenty of things as Tails, so we aren't completely out of luck," Miles said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Yeah. Should I go to the hospital? I mean, broken ribs and glass splinters aren't things that just heal like a papercut," Nick said to Miles. They both stood up, put away their lunches, and sat down at one of the benches that were along the walls of the cafeteria.

"Well at least that encounter with Metal tells us that Robotnik is gonna get back in full swing of breaking stuff, but I still don't know where the echidna stands in all of this," Miles said, making a thinking face. Nick mocked his expression, then perked up with his own idea.

"Do you think that there are super rings on Angel Island? You said the ancient echidnas had a bunch of stuff that they used to do with the thing at the place!" Nick said to Miles.

"Do you mean, 'the ancient echidnas used chaos energy to make the island float'? I see what you're getting at, though. They could have machines or stuff that creates super rings and hides the chaos emeralds, and maybe super emeralds, in them," Miles said.

"Yeah, so let's just-" The bell cut off Nick's idea, and then all of the students flooded the hallways to get to class. Nick instinctively got up and sprinted to class, making sure to be the first one upstairs. Miles sighed, then walked upstairs to class.

Sorry this chapter's a bit short, but I've already started on Chapter 3! Feel free to give me your feedback and thoughts!


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi, I'm not dead, just busy, but I did find some time to finish up this chapter. Don't expect another update for a little while, but keep in mind that I am determined to finish this story, even if it takes me 3 years! I'll probably post chapter 4 in a few weeks, and I will keep doing so, even if nobody reads these, because I've just fallen in love with the characters. Okay I'm done now.**

Chapter 3:

Nick got home from school, made himself mac & cheese, then flopped on the couch. Christmas break starts tomorrow, and Nick didn't feel like doing anything. His phone started buzzing, but he left it on the counter in the kitchen. "Uuugh," Nick groaned, then he lazily paused the show he was watching, got up, and walked over to his phone. Miles was calling.

"What is it?" Nick asked, unpausing the show and shifting his attention to that.

"Nick, it's urgent! There's a ton of badniks flooding the beach near the boardwalk! I have a hunch that Robotnik's gonna show up any second now, so-"

"Alright, I get the idea. I'll be over there in a sonic second!"

"Wait, Nick! Remember-!"

Nick hung up, then transformed into Sonic, and instantly felt the sharp stinging everywhere, and a strong pain in his chest. Some of his light blue quills were soaked with blood. "AAAAAAAAAAAAA" he screamed, then fell to his knees and took a deep breath. Big mistake. It felt like something was pulling his ribs apart even more, and a small cracking sound could be heard.

Sonic immediately transformed back into his human form. "I-I guess it feels a bit better than this morning?" Nick said, shrugging and calling Miles again. He waited. And waited. Finally, Nick threw on his jacket and sneakers, then ran out the door. "Miles, you better not be hurt, or I'll give you a real reason to go to the hospital," Nick thought to himself as he ran through the dark, cold night.

When he got to the boardwalk, sure enough, there was a full badik horde, but Miles or Tails were nowhere to be found. A lot of the badniks were brand new models, like star pointers, penguinators, and flybots. But Nick didn't care about those, he was looking for Miles.

"Hey, Ni-!" Nick heard behind him. Nick whipped around to find Tails high up in the air, dodging the attacks of a group of star pointers. "Tails! Don't worry, I'll-" Nick shouted.

Tails laughed a little, then destroyed all of the star pointers and landed in front of Nick. "Dude, I'm fine. It's just a couple badniks, and it's not like you can do anything," Tails told Nick, then walked over to a penguinator and destroyed it.

"So, I can't do anything?"

"Nope. Just… go home, Nick"

Nick walked home, feeling useless. He needed to get some chaos energy for healing. During his walk, he came up with an idea. He would go to Angel Island, then find a place where he could wait for the echidna guy. When the echidna came, Nick would transform, so that nobody would know that he was Nick. Then, he would ask to borrow a chaos emerald, and if the echidna did one good thing for him, why not help out a second time?

Nick got home and wrote out his brilliant plan on paper. Now the hard part. Getting Miles to agree to flying Nick out to Angel Island. Nick heard a 'swishy' propeller sound coming from outside the window. It was Tails. Nick ran over to the window and opened it, a blast of cold air coming from outside. Tails landed inside, then transformed into Miles.

"Hey, you looked like you wanted to ask me a question earlier," Miles said.

"Yeah… so, I was wondering if you could fly me to Angel Island," Nick said, hiding the plan behind his back.

"Absolutely not"

"Aw, come on! I had it all planned out and stuff," Nick said, holding out the plan.

Miles took it and his eyes scanned over it. "Hmm. It's so stupid, it might actually work!"

"Thanks," Nick said sarcastically.

The next day, Nick was enjoying being able to sleep in on Christmas break, when Miles jumped into his room and took the pillow Nick was resting on. "Hey man what the-" Miles hit him upside the head with the pillow.

"Just making sure you're awake," Miles said, pulling Nick out of bed, wincing at the fact that Nick had slept in the same clothes he wore yesterday.

Miles pulled Nick downstairs, and out the door, where Nick finally fought his way out of Miles' grasp. "I need to get shoes on, gimme a sec," Nick said, scrambling inside and coming out a few seconds later with his worn out red sneakers on.

Nick was about to say something, raising his finger up to his shoulder and opening his mouth, but instead ran inside the garage to grab his bike. "What? It takes forever to get to your house on foot," Nick said, shrugging.

After running alongside Nick for a while, Miles jumped up in the air and turned into Tails. Tails smirked back at Nick as he sped up. Nick saw this, then hunched over the bike and pedaled faster.

Eventually, they made it to Miles' house, then went in through the hangar. Tails transformed back into Miles, grabbed his flight goggles, then hopped into the pilot's seat. Nick, as always, jumped up on the wings. They gave each other a thumbs up, then Miles took off and flew them to the mysterious island.

Nick hopped off onto sand, then did his best impression of Solid Snake. "Kernelll," Nick growled. Miles groaned. "I'mm hidinggg in a karbordd boks…" Miles gave him a nasty look, then took off again to find a better place to land. Nick waved, then continued on with his mission.

After freaking out over every small bit of red in the jungle for the better part of a half hour, Nick heard someone else walking around on the other side of some rocks. Nick breathed out silently, then jumped out from behind the rocks and transformed mid-air. "Ouch," he groaned quietly.

The *crunch* that he made upon impact with the ground sure gave the echidna a fright, as the red animal fell over on his back. He got up, still trying to be tough and imposing.

"What do you think _you're_ doing on _my_ island," the echidna snarled, his lips curling back like a mad dog as he stomped over to Sonic.

Sonic simply made a gurgling noise in his throat that could've been interpreted as "Chaos." The echidna rolled his eyes, but stopped when he got a better look at the state Sonic was in. His sky blue fur was stained deep purple in many places by blood, and his torso was badly distorted, his arms laying splayed out unnaturally in all sorts of directions. The echidna winced, pulled a chaos emerald out, the bright orange-yellow shimmering wildly in the dazzling sunlight. He leaned close to Sonic, the chaos emerald reflecting its color on Sonic's forehead. Sonic's dreary eyes stared longingly at the emerald.

Finally, after what felt like forever, the echidna tapped the emerald on Sonic's head briefly, then walked away, paying no attention. Even with that short tap, Sonic could feel tons of chaos energy coursing through him, healing his wounds, but not removing the bloodstains. Sonic stood up, smirking and looking down at his hands, then shifting his attention further down to his feet. Sonic's smirk spread into a grin. Not evil, not insane, just a happy, gleeful grin. He looked up to the echidna, his broad back facing Sonic.

Sonic felt his arm grip the ground on instinct, and his legs and feet twirled into a rough figure-eight. His legs were moving so fast that it could be heard, a high-pitched whistling. The echidna began to turn around, shocked, but it was too late.


End file.
